This was one of my favorite days in Kodiak.
Emma and I took the kayak out to Near Island. I kayaked here a couple days ago and it was beautiful, so I was excited to show Emma this part of the island. I didn't expect to see whales in the water with us! I knew that kayaking with whales was a possibility, but I didn't actually think we would see one. The first one we saw seemed really close, but it was still a ways out. Emma kept her cool, but I freaked out a little. I have seen one too many YouTube videos of whales coming up for air directly underneath kayakers, or whales breaching right next to kayakers, etc. freaks me out. Thankfully, this guy was far enough away that I felt comfortable that he wasn't going to toss me into the water. We saw one or two more in the far distance and felt pretty lucky to have witnessed them. We turned our kayak toward another island and began paddling again. All of a sudden, we heard this huge puff of air and splash of water behind us. We both turned to see a gigantic humpback whale come up for air no more than 40 feet directly behind us. I screamed like a crazy lady and began paddling like my life depended on it, as if I could outrun a freaking whale. I screamed for Emma to paddle faster, then decided to scream at her to take a picture of it instead. While she tried to get her phone out, I watched this massive mammal float at the surface of the water, turn its body more so it was facing us, and slowly disappear under the surface of the water. Emma got her camera ready and we waited for the whale to resurface. I waited, imagining his massive tail coming out of the water and flipping us over, or his huge belly jumping out and landing on top of us, or his back coming up and lifting us out of the water. Every scene from "The Heart of the Sea" played through my mind and I wondered if having something truly terrifying happen was worth the story later.
Fortunately for us, the whale decided that we weren't too interesting. When he surfaced again, he was much further away and was clearly swimming back out to sea. We never got a good picture of him (Emma's video of us waiting for him to resurface is just 2 shaky minutes of us giggling hysterically).
What an experience! 
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